It is well known that when teeth, such as bucket teeth, are used in abrasive conditions, the material of each tooth wears at a quick rate due to the abrasive action of the material being worked. The increased wear rate shortens the usable life of the tooth plus, during use, the tooth normally becomes blunt which inhibits its ability to penetrate the material being worked. Additionally, trying to force a blunted tooth to penetrate the material being worked requires additional effort, thus, reducing the overall operating efficiency of the machine. Various attempts have been made to increase wear life and maintain sharpness during the useful life of the tooth. In various ones of the known teeth, a hard material insert or a hard weld material is applied to the top surface of the tooth and in another one of the prior art teeth, hard material is applied to the bottom of the tooth. In the first mentioned teeth, the hard weld and/or hard material inserts are applied to the top of the tooth, thus, not protecting the bottom thereof. In the latter illustrated tooth, the hard weld is additionally applied to the bottom of the tip which does aid in resisting prematurely wearing of the bottom of the tip. In order to better protect the abrasion resistant material, it is desirable to have material applied to the base material of the tooth in a protected area so that it will not prematurely chip away during use. Furthermore, it is beneficial to have a tooth in which the wear rate is controlled to aid in maintaining the sharpness of the tooth while providing the structure to allow the tooth to be used in various applications. Even though it is desirable to add additional wear life and to maintain sharpness of the tooth, it is also an important objective to maintain the strength of the tooth in order to resist breakage thereof.
The present invention is directed to overcoming one or more of the problems as set forth above.